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People rarely mention the concluding moment of the Ashes. It's the first that's famous. That wide that goes to the slips, that beautiful stroke for four, that dismissal, bowled him! Concluding moments? I needed to check. Moeen Ali cutting a stroke behind to conclude a batting effort rout in a meaningless match in 2015; Rankin being taken at slip off Ryan Harris, Boyd Rankin featuring in his sole Test at the fag-end of a quick disintegration in a clean sweep that's been plentiful in 2014; a Steve Harmison rising delivery deflecting off Justin Langer's shoulder for runs, the single four Australia score in a target they'll not attempt in 2005.

It's the difference between wondering how things will go, and understanding how they do. One certainty is, there's no guarantee there will be a positive outcome. For the last decade, the English Australian tours have ended in ashes, instead of with them. Flower was removed as coach after one humiliating defeat, in 2013-14, Chris Silverwood lost his after another, in 2021-22. It's possible to form a two lineups out of national team members who participated in their concluding Test match at the back end of an Australian tour during the last quarter-century, and even have a couple of men over to serve as reserves for either side.

This England team have never claimed to worry excessively about results. Stokes, like Morgan with the ODI squad before him, always says that if a lifted stroke is caught on the boundary is secondary as if it was the right decision to attempt it in the outset, and while fielding he's pleased to applaud a pitcher who allows scoring shots so long as they bringing the team toward taking that subsequent dismissal. But then the very reason Stokes tried to instruct his squad to adopt this approach was so they would be in a better position to produce the kind of cricket he thinks will perform effectively for them in Australia.

This Ashes series, for which they have been training rigorously, already feels like the outcome they cannot escape. It is this aggressive approach's make or break moment. And there are an abundance of predictions of failure in the English game for the team to avoid backlash if they do endure a further disappointing result in the next few weeks. The captain's strategy has been based on defying expectations, and the counterpart is it seems that there are many individuals who would be delighted to be shown right.

Given that, it's a good moment to emphasize that the crucial matter is not only where this all ends up, but whether or not we found pleasure along the way. In the recent past, England were an utterly abject national side. They had been beaten in four consecutive series and were trailing in the fifth, against India, when it was suspended because of the pandemic. They had won only one Test match out of 17, and lost 12 of them by humiliating deficits. A loss by eight wickets to the Kiwis at the historic venue, 157 runs to the Indian squad at the the London ground, an a comprehensive loss to the Aussie team at the iconic ground, 10 wickets to West Indies in the scenic location.

England were thrashed by the Caribbean team in Grenada in spring 2022 just before Root stepped aside as skipper.

By the conclusion, after all those periods of testing and isolation and biosecure bubbles and constant defeats at the hands of each rival, they were practically the most dejected and exhausted Test team the English cricket board had ever put on to a sports ground. A significant portion of what Ben Stokes and Brendon McCullum have achieved in the following period was in response to all that, as well as the Stokes' experiences during his five-month break from the game in 2021 when he had endured a series of panic attacks. It was intended to make people recall that it was meant to be fun, if it was intended as anything at all.

That remains true now. Even when the Ashes is on the line, and even if the team have ultimately accepted that they need to be a somewhat adaptable in the way they go about playing the game. Normal existence has a way of imposing, it can be hard to remember the lessons we learn in our toughest times.

Here is the national side that secured back-to-back final innings pursuits of 277, 299, and 296 in one season against New Zealand; that achieved a massive 378 to beat the Indian team that same summer; that became the first touring team to win a clean sweep in Pakistan; that battled hard to a stalemate after going 2-0 down in the the series; that overcame India in the southern city off the back of one of the most remarkable knocks ever performed in the the area, and then overcame Pakistan in the location off the back of another.

Here we have the English squad, too, that unexpectedly end up losing a Test by an large margin even though the opposition made a relatively low total; who ended up suffering a loss in one of the more exciting matches ever contested after making a cocksure declaration in the opening session against the Kiwis, and then followed suit against Australia; who were soundly beaten by a massive 434 runs in the Indian city, and who were on the unsuccessful part of one of the island nation's finest wins. As a unit, they have achieved some of the most improbable victories, suffered some of the ugliest dismissals, made some of the unlikeliest tons, and taken some of the most startling five-fers in the records of the English game.

Regardless of how this prestigious tournament unfolds, they have been, one after another, astonishing, unbelievable, absurd, infuriating, and completely, without regret, unashamedly thrilling.